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Assam villagers return home; tribal students’ union comes under cloud
More than half of some 342,600 persons displaced by the ethnic cleansing last month have headed back to their villages in Assam amidst accusations that a tribal students’ body had helped an outlawed militant outfit in carrying out the carnage against adivasis.
More than half of some 342,600 persons displaced by the ethnic cleansing last month have headed back to their villages in Assam amidst accusations that a tribal students’ body had helped an outlawed militant outfit in carrying out the carnage against adivasis.
The bloodshed had claimed the lives of 86 people, most of them adivasis.
“The All Bodo Students’ Union (Absu) and pro-talks faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland helped members of the NDFB (Sangbijit) go underground after the mayhem,” Hagrama Mohilary, chief of Bodoland Tribal Council (BTC), said.
NDFB (pro-talks), engaged in peace negotiations with New Delhi, is headed by Dhiren Boro.
The violence last month was across two BTC districts — Chirang and Kokrajhar — besides swathes of Sonitpur district beyond the council’s eastern boundary. Mohilary said he came to know of the NDFB(S)-Absu-NDFB(pro-talks) nexus from the adivasis and Bodos who bore the brunt of the militant strikes and the retaliatory attacks.
Reacting to the accusation, Absu president Pramode Boro said: “In more than a decade of ruling the council, Mohilary has failed to provide security to the people. He is talking rubbish because his party (Bodoland People’s Front) is staring at defeat in the upcoming BTC elections.” He demanded Mohilary be brought under the purview of the ongoing probe into the carnage.
